Who doesn’t loveMinecraft? It’s the light-hearted game of a lone survivor making his way in a pixelated world. The monsters aren’t too scary, and because the game can be as easy or as challenging as the player wants it,Minecraftis one of those rare games that adults and kids can both love and spend hours playing. So it would stand to reason that a real-life version of the game would be just as happy-go-lucky and mellow, right? I mean, how can you not feel calm with those mellowC418tones coming at you?
Well, friends, it turns out realisticMinecraftis actually pretty solid nightmare fuel, as YouTubersNukazookaprove. Things start out with some lighthearted, chuckle-worthy stuff like chopping a tree down with NOTHING BUT YOUR FISTS (Steve’s a badass, y’all), and somehow being able to craft a pickax with nothing more than a bit of rock and wood. But the situation gets kicked up a notch when Steve is out exploring and spots some diamond in a cave wall. Hidden from the sun, monsters come out in droves to chase after our poor explorer.
The zombies are definitely a lot more terrifying than what we see inMinecraft, sure, but with shows likeThe Walking Deadon the air, we’re pretty used to seeing the shambling hordes of the undead. The spooky factor really gets kicked up when we see the “realistic” version of aCreeper–which is apparently a horrifying bug-like creature that has basically ruined my weird love of those little exploding bastards forever. It’s a fun and simultaneously terrifying adventure, and really makes you look at the world ofMinecraftdifferently. I won’t spoil the very end of the video for you, but lovers ofMinecraftlore will be pretty excited–and simultaneously terrified–about how this realisticMinecraftjourney ends.
WhatMinecraft monsters would you like to see morphed into a more “realistic” version? What was your favorite part of the Nukazooka video? Let me know in the comments!
If you’ve ever found yourself sadly logging out ofMinecraft, wishing you could just live in it, the experience may not be quite as fun as you think.YouTube channel Nukazooka, by filmmakerAndrew McMurry(who does all the VFX) and his friends, has created a video of what Minecraft might be like in the real world.
At first, everything seems fine. Certainly making hammers and smashing up rocks is a lot easier than anything you might find in the real world. Being attacked by monsters? Maybe not so much…
If you’re addicted to fighting off zombies while designing soaring architectural wonders, there’s a pretty good chance you’re a fan of Minecraft. Turns out you’re not the only one playing: Minecraft maker Mojang says the blocky game of blocks – and the occasional blocky sheep – has passed the 100 million mark in terms of copies purchased. For just this year, Mojang says the game is downloaded 53,000 times – each day.
First released in 2011, Minecraft has been a surprise hit, and Mojang was scooped up by Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion. Mojang says Minecraft is played on every continent on the planet – including Antarctica – and that nearly half of the players are crafting away on mobile devices. It’s also one of the few video games parents feel good about letting their kids play – for hours on end. There are a lot of future architects out there.
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Smartwatch pioneer Pebble has been busy rolling out new stuff lately, including the unusual Pebble Core, a little box of tech that allows users to leave the phone at home but still listen to Spotify, record that moment of inspiration, track fitness data – and chat up Amazon’s helpful A.I. assistant Alexa, apparently. Not bad for just $69. The Core connects using 3G and there’s also a version for hackers who’d like to develop more core… stuff.
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We’re keeping a close eye on Google’s autonomous car efforts and it looks like they just gave their self-driving pod-mobiles a very human-like quality: knowing when to honk the horn. Up until now, Google says their cars only honked discreetly at the interior occupants as a warning about an exterior danger. They say they want their robot cars to be polite, considerate and only honk when it makes sense for safety.
And just what kind of horn does a law-abiding, courteous, self-directed people-mover have? Google didn’t say, but seeing how the roads seem to be filled with highly distracted human auto-pilots, we have some rather loud suggestions.
Mojang just announced a new episode of Minecraft: Story Mode to come next week. The 6the episode of the series is going to be called “A Portal to Mystery,” and it will arrive on June 7th to PC, Xbox One and Xbox 360.
The new episode will follow events from the previous one, but it will also be the very first Minecraft: Story Mode game developed by Telltale Games to be centered around the original title, developed by Mojang. The company released a new blog post announcing the new episode, and here’s what it says:
“In Episode 6: ‘A Portal to Mystery’, continuing their journey through the portal hallway, Jesse and crew land themselves in another strange new world – one completely overrun by zombies. With a timely invitation to take refuge in a spooky mansion, they find themselves thrown into a thrilling mystery alongside famous members of the Minecraft community. Fresh perils await them in an unfamiliar land, as does the sinister figure known as The Host. What can this pumpkin-headed hostelier have in mind for his new guests? Who are the strangers invited to attend The Host’s mansion party?! Can anyone be trusted?!! Who will survive?!!! Will Owen tell me off for using excessive punctuation?!!!! Who knows?!!!!!
Several special guest stars from the Minecraft community join the cast in this new episode, all playing characters from their own YouTube videos. Players will get to interact with Joseph Garrett as Stampy Cat, Stacy Hinojosa as Stacy Plays, Dan Middleton as DanTDM (The Diamond Minecart), Lizzie as LDShadowLady, and Jordan Maron as CaptainSparklez!”
As you can see, Jesse is still the main character of the story. He and his friends fight zombies in a world behind the portal hallway, but they’re going to have support for some known characters for the first time ever. Namely, some stars of the Minecraft community will play as their own characters, including Joseph Garrett, Stacy Hinojosa, Dan Middleton, Lizzie, and others.
The new episode will be available for the price of $4.99, but also as a part of the new Adventure Pass, which will contain episodes 6, 7, and 8. The Adventure Pass will cost $14.99. Also, keep in mind that you need to have at least episode 1, or the previous Season Pass to be able to purchase episodes 6, 7, and 8.
Tell us in the comments, what do you think about the new Minecraft: Story Mode episode? Will you buy it, or you’ll buy the Adventure Pass, and make sure you don’t miss anything?
Microsoft’s simply offering too much value in its console and mobile versions for the average consumer to wrestle with the PC edition.
If you still think Minecraft is a PC game—well, you’re flat wrong. According to new numbers released by Mojang and Microsoft, the original version for the PC is the least popular platform, in almost every region worldwide.
Microsoft said Thursday that Minecraft has sold more than 106,859,714 copies to date across all platforms—which would represent the twelfth most populous nation in the world, right behind Japan. Four copies have even been sold into Antarctica.
But if you dig into Microsoft’s numbers, they reveal that far, far more users are buying Minecraft on platforms other than the PC. In fact, in the United States, the number of traditional copies of Minecraft sold on the PC is just 19 percent. Console sales represent 41 percent, just topping the 40 percent of users who have bought the Pocket Edition for mobile and the UWP version of the game. That’s much the same worldwide, too.
MojangMinecraft simply isn’t a PC game any more, according to Microsoft’s latest numbers.
Why this matters: For many years, Minecraft offered elements of the game on the PC that simply weren’t available elsewhere, with mods and shared servers being the chief appeal. Mojang and Microsoft also prioritized the PC, launching new features (special “redstone” blocks, potions, new enemies and skins) on the PC first, and then later porting them over to other platforms. Over time, some of these key PC-centric features have been pushed to other platforms. Today, Minecraft’s console and mobile versions might not offer quite the same flexibility, but they’re a good compromise.
The PC as just another device
This all might come as a surprise to PC gamers, given that Minecraft was one of the games that, for a while, was synonymous with the PC. From 2009 to 2011, Minecraft existed solely on the PC as pre-release software, gaining an audience by word of mouth. Creator Markus “Notch” Persson also committed to offering the full version of the game to those who purchased it while in its beta state.
In 2011, however, Persson released an early alpha of the game to the Google Play app store, and in 2012 he ported the game to the Microsoft Xbox 360. Today, you can find Minecraft everywhere: as a PC game written in Java, but also for OS X and Linux; for Android and iOS; the PlayStation 3, 4, and PlayStation Vita; and the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Microsoft also has rewritten Minecraft in C++ as a so-called UWP app, capable of being run on the PC as well as Windows phones. (Minecraft for the PC exists in two versions: the traditional Win32 Java app, and the more limited beta of the Pocket Edition UWP app.)
When you think about how Microsoft now pushes apps and services like Outlook or Cortana across multiple platforms, Microsoft’s purchase of Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014 makes much more sense. But it also highlights the rocky road that Microsoft’s business will bump over as it tries to make its UWP vision a reality.
Take pricing, for one. Microsoft charges $26.95 for the traditional PC version of Minecraft, $19.99 for the Xbox One version, and just $6.99 for the Pocket Edition app and similar versions on mobile platforms. (Microsoft charges $9.99 for the Windows 10 Pocket Edition.) That itself is helping to drive gamers to the other platforms.
Microsoft’s cheaper Pocket Edition offers much of the same Minecraft experience for far less.
Microsoft has justified the relatively high price of its legacy Win32 app by highlighting its flexibility, which allow users and designers to do practically anything they want with the platform (except sell stuff) via software modifications. But over time, Microsoft has cherry-picked some of the most popular content and ported it to its other, cheaper platforms, including “redstone” to the Pocket Edition and shared servers. (Fans still complain that Mojang still has yet to add the “Ender Dragon” and other legacy gameplay elements to the Pocket Edition, however.)
Mojang also added cross-platform play to Minecraft via a 2015 update, allowing Pocket Edition players on PC, iOS, Android, or Windows Phone to play together on a local network or five PC players to play together over Xbox Live. But so far that cross-play capability has eluded the original Java-based version of the game, and saved games still can’t be shared among platforms. There are now essentially three major, incompatible versions of Minecraft: the legacy PC edition, the console versions, and the new UWP/mobile apps.
In many ways, that’s evidence of the messy, messy legacy that Microsoft must deal with as it tries to unify decades worth of apps under its new Windows 10 banner, especially with initiatives like Project Centennial.
While Win32 apps like Minecraft were written during a more freewheeling time when they could be modified at will, Microsoft’s UWP apps under Windows 10 sacrifice that flexibility for compatibility across as many platforms as possible. Now Microsoft is working to bridge the gap between old and new with pledges to allow some mods, frame rate counters, and the like in UWP apps. But the only recent modifications to UWP apps like Quantum Break have been tweaks to allow them to work with GSync and FreeSync monitors.
Eventually, Microsoft may be able to strike a balance between the flexibility of modifications and allowing a consistent Minecraft experience across multiple platforms. But for now, gamers appear to be simply throwing up their hands and moving on.
Minecraft is taking over the world as we know it one piston at a time and soon these magical blocks will finally be making their way to Minecraft: Pocket Edition and the Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta.
“The Friendly Update” as it’s titled will bring the top-requested piston block to the Minecraft Community on these platforms. This will add draw bridges and trap doors to your repertoire of building blocks for use. Be sure to check out the video below to see how advanced your creations can get when you add a little steam action into the game.
The update doesn’t yet have a release date but it will include the Rube Goldberg machine from the trailer.
